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What do Nick Carty’s speech students and the Director of
the Missouri Coalition for Oral Health have in common?
A unique partnership, says Carty, who has encouraged
students in his COMM 1110 class to engage in service
learning initiatives such as the one established between
several of his current students at Dalton State and
Shawntay Myers, Executive Director for the Missouri
Coalition for Oral Health.
On the part of the students, the partnership involves
the creation of short speeches on “good oral health”
issues, which will be videotaped, copied to dvds, and
given to Myers for her to use with her public outreach
activities in Missouri.
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Carty sees it as a “win/win.”
“This is one way to make the assignments the students do
in class more relevant for them,” he says, noting that
“they can see the applications in the real world.”
For one of the five required speeches in his COMM 1110
class, Carty gives students the option of adding a
service learning component. This “persuasive” speech is
designed to meet the demands of the classroom assignment
and to have a larger use beyond the classroom.
“For the persuasive speech, I like to focus on the
concepts of health and wellness,” says Carty. “So the
students who have chosen to work with Myers on this
project are learning about oral health during the course
of preparing their speeches.”
These students will benefit from working closely with a
“real world” public speaker, Carty says, noting that the
experience should drive home the importance that
developing good oral communication skills plays in the
workplace.
An added benefit, he says, is that they are also
contributing to Myer’s “collaterals,” or materials that
she can use to educate Missourians about the importance
of good oral health.
Myers, who has ties to the area, is a frequent visitor
to Dalton State. On her trips South, she has met with
several of the students who plan to videotape their
speeches for use in Missouri.
“They seem to be very excited about it,” Myers says. “In
our discussions, they have mentioned that they didn’t
realize how many general health issues can be linked to
poor oral hygiene.”
Health issues like diabetes, heart disease and stroke
are often linked to oral health, she says, noting that
one of the four students, Janet Duran, has chosen to
focus on circulatory issues related to oral health while
Katie Hill is persuading others to “Stop the Pop” by
focusing on the degenerative effect that carbonated
sodas have on teeth.
In Carty’s other COMM 1110 section, student Chris Ball
is looking at oral health from the perspective of
children, and Christina Woodward is looking at the
relationship between methamphetamine abuse and oral
diseases.
In her role as the Executive Director of the Missouri
Coalition for Oral Health, Myers focuses on oral health
education, coalition building between service providers
across the state, and access to the latest research on
oral health issues.
The short six-eight minute persuasive speeches that
Myers will be able to use on the jobsite will be taped
on campus in mid-November.
“Once those are recorded, we’ll see how they’ve turned
out and if they’re ready,” Myers says, adding that
students may need more than one dry run to “get it
right.”
Once Myers has the dvds of the speeches at home in
Missouri, she will use them for educational and
persuasive purposes at her discretion.
“One possible venue is when we have our six coalition
meetings during the year, where community leaders often
gather and express their concerns about oral health
issues. Our annual Oral Health Summit is another
possible opportunity for people to see these tapes,” she
adds.
Carty says that the partnership between his class and
the Missouri coalition is proving to be a valuable
teaching tool.
“This project helps us make the point that health and
wellness are front and center issues in our world today.
And it gives us a chance to link what we’re doing in
educational institutions with what’s going on in the
world.”
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